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The Count
In Biggles Makes Ends Meet, "the Count" was the chief lieutenant of Colonel Black, the leader of a powerful smuggling gang which operated out of a secret base in the Nicobar Islands. The Count directed the gang's operations at the Ceylon end of its network. Biggles and Ginger first encountered the Count at the port of Jaffna after their interview with Tidore. Johns devoted several paragraphs recording Ginger's first impressions in another one of his skilfully written word pictures. The Count was described as an Eurasian, with a dark complexion but with blue eyes. He was immaculately dressed in a spotless white linen suit "with the trousers creased to a knife edge." His signature was the panama hat worn at a rakish angle and he would he seen in this throughout the book. At the first meeting with Biggles and Ginger, he also smoked a black cheroot. What struck Ginger as out of place was his accent--a sort of exaggerated "Oxford" accent which was "a little too perfect." According to Johns, both his voice and manner were those of "a stage comedian 'taking off' a member of the aristocracy." Johns rendered this accent with words like "deah" and "mistah". Indeed, he almost always addressed Biggles as "deah man". At their first meeting, the Count advised Biggles and Ginger to go home because Mr Tidore whom they had just met was a dangerous man. He told Biggles that he was willing to fill in the gaps in Mr Tidore's account of how he had been robbed. He admitted that this was as much for the benefit of Biggles as it was for his gang. Tidore, it seemed, had hidden a letter with incriminating information about his gang. They couldn't touch him for fear the letter might be published. However, if he could damage Mr Tidore's reputation for truthfulness, this would undermine the force of the letter should it ever come out. With this in mind, the Count revealed to Biggles that Tidore had actually been smuggling gold from Macao at the time he had been robbed, and in doing this, he had encroached upon the territory of the County's gang. This gold had in fact been hidden in the oysters on board Tidore's ship, the Shima. The Count showed up again later in the grounds of Tidore's house later the same day. Biggles and Ginger were having a second interview with Tidore, who was eager to learn what the Count had told them about him. He was about to reveal the location of the smuggling gang's secret base in the Nicobars when he was stabbed by one of the Count's men. Biggles and Ginger beat made a hasty escape but saw, from behind a wall, the Count directing his men to burn down Tidore's house in order to eliminate Tidore's hidden letter. The Count showed up again later, having flown east, accompanying Colonel Black to Kutaradja to see Vandershon in order to force him to cooperate with the gang. He was there again with the Colonel at Kuala Lumpur when the Colonel dropped in to see Biggles to bribe Biggles to lay off his investigations. The Count returned to Kutaradja with the Colonel and from there to the to the secret base in the Nicobars. Towards the end of the end, with a major monsoon storm approaching, the Count departed the secret base on board the gang's Dakota piloted by Mitsubu in order to return to Jaffna with a load of gold. However Mitsubu soon turned back, having decided that he could not outrun the storm. In trying to land at the base, he failed to notice that the wind had shifted dramatically. He overshot his touchdown point in a stiff tailwind and crashed into some buildings at the end of the runway. The aircraft caught fire and both Mitsubu and the Count were killed. Category:People Category:Biggles characters Category:Air Police era characters